Francesca Belibi erupted onto the basketball scene in 2017 at 15 years old when she became the first high school girl to dunk in a game in Colorado history. It was impressive for a 6’1″ guard who had only been hooping for a year-and-a-half, but her life outside of basketball is just as profound.

Belibi, a senior at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado, has committed to play ball at Stanford. With a 4.0 GPA and averaging 13.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.6 steals and 1.6 blocks in her junior year, she had her pick of cream-of-the-crop universities like Harvard, Princeton and Notre Dame, but she selected Stanford because of their medical school.

Both of her parents are doctors, and she has intentions of becoming a pediatrician because she “likes kids.”

“Once we got through it, and once I finished all my official visits, Stanford was just the clear choice for me in terms of basketball, faith and the fact that it had a medical school on campus,” Belibi told the Denver Post.

 

Belibi was a member of the USA Basketball team that took home gold in the U17 World Cup this summer. And, her teammates had fun incorporating alley oops into their game.

 

 

As talented and athletic as Belibi is now, the best is yet to come, according to her high school coach Carl Mattei.

“She has only tapped about 40 percent of her ability,” Mattei told Mile High Sports. “She’s raw. She’s not consistent on a 3-point shot, not consistent on her jump shot, not consistent on free throws, not consistent on defense, she just goes out to block the shot… once she’s working in college and actually focuses on the defensive aspect of her game, she’ll be something. She has that fight in her. She has the ability to become a bear on the court.”

And off the court, she as the aptitude to make a real difference, using medicine as the catalyst.